Striphas

The propriety of reading
(Matt Offet)

 -         --   The “property” of the reader of an e-book is their time and effort that they exert in picking a title and reading it. Amazon takes this user-generated data and uses it to their advantage by recommending products to the readers and others who liked similar products. Striphas relates this application of effort by Kindle readers into benefit for Amazon to “free labor” since they are benefitting from the work done by their customers in more ways than just the initial purchase. (p. 304)

 -            --Courts have ruled that personal information isn’t a property of individuals in Dwyer v. American Express Co. (1995). Their view is that personal data has no value, but when a company like Amazon aggregates all these pieces of data and creates information it is then a valuable product. (p.304-305)

 -            --When a reader reads a Kindle product, it is viewed very differently by the reader and Amazon. As Amazon views it as an asset and the reader sees it as labor that they exerted to read the piece. Striphas draws parallels between this process and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website, where they post tasks that need completed for a price of anywhere from a couple cents to a few dollars per job. The Mechanical Turk website will post tasks such as “Writing product reviews, performing rudimentary research, identifying and tagging images, and more” (Striphas, 305), these are all tasks that the current generation of computers are ill equipped to handle. (p. 305)

(Kaley Lengacher)

-Striphas shares how he wants to be careful about expanding the idea of Mechanical Turk too far because the work of Amazon can be considered human intelligence task also. There are questions that need to be answered such as “What has a person been reading?”. Once all of the data has been collected, Amazon and their workers are able to put together information for the readers. With this, the labor of the work is eliminated. (pg. 305-306)

-The act of being courteous and not reading over someone else’ shoulder has been around for quite some time. When one reads, they are in a personal and cognitive space that is only theirs. According to John Stuart Mill, that cognitive and personal space is, “the inward domain of consciousness” and also the “absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects” (Striphas, 306). Our cognitive space is a space that should also not be violated by those wanting to read over the shoulder. (pg.306)

-Striphas does not think that it is right of others to look at what others are reading. When a person is reading, this is a private endeavor that should not be intruded by those gazers. People become uncomfortable when they know they are being watched. (pg. 306)

-Striphas is concerned that we say it is a violation of privacy to see what others are reading, but yet we have Kindle who can monitor what you are reading and how long you have been reading. Kindle is potentially “eavesdropping” on what readers are doing. He poses the question if we should be concerned about this or not. (pg. 306-307)

(Aaron Swaidner)

-Author of the book The Digital Person Daniel J. Solove argues that while there are protective measures in corporate privacy policies regarding digital data, that the existence of loopholes and exceptions lead to the threat of information leak. (p. 307)

-The issue of "Privacy drift" is a possibility in business matters such as mergers and acquisitions. While the initial company may have a privacy policy that it upholds, the flow of information into another company may not be under the same privacy policy, allowing for the possibility of the release of that information. Should a company declare bankruptcy, assets, including databases, are liquidated, allowing further threat in this flow of information. (p. 307)

-The storing of personal information and usage involving the Kindle allows for the potential of governmental surveillance. By obtaining a subpeona, law officials can access the information at a library or bookstore to better understand a suspect's habits and potential behavior that could be crime related. The issue exists as a possibility for the Kindle, as well. (p. 307-308)

-Kindle agrees to release information believed to "comply with the law". While Fourth Amendment rights usually protects personal information, government considers the digital cloud storage of this information to not be private information, rather, they see it as "stored communication". The obtaining of a subpoena, then, is easier this way. In agreeing to Kindle's terms, readers have no choice but to relinquish such liberties. (p. 308)